Milan forward Noah Okafor has suffered an injury to his thigh while away on international duty with Switzerland, leaving coach Stefano Pioli with somewhat of a striker crisis heading into the weekend’s Serie A fixture against Fiorentina.
The 23-year-old, who joined the Rossoneri from RB Salzburg for a deal worth in the region of €15m this summer, sustained a lesion to his right hamstring during Switzerland’s 1-0 loss to Romania on Tuesday evening.
Okafor started both games for his country during the international break, including in the 1-1 draw with Kosovo on Saturday.
Multiple outlets report that Okafor will be unavailable for this weekend’s round of fixtures and will be re-assessed in the coming week.
The injury comes at a bad time for Milan coach Stefano Pioli, who will also be without regular starter Olivier Giroud at the weekend.
The Frenchman was shown a straight red card in the 93rd minute of Milan’s 2-2 draw with Lecce before the pause in domestic action.
Giroud will now have to sit out Milan’s next two matches, leaving just Luka Jovic and the highly-rated, yet untested 15-year-old Francesco Camarda as the only available options up front.
The early reports indicate that Jovic is likely to start against his former club at the weekend.
Jovic has not yet scored since joining Milan on a free from Fiorentina in the summer. He has appeared for just 233 minutes across seven appearances so far in 2023-24.